The 26-year-old actor just wrapped up his first season on Lifetime’s Army Wives as Private Truman.

“There’s a pivotal scene where I’m in one of the towers, and I pick up a machine gun, and I end up firing at the enemy and ultimately end up saving this platoon,” Jesse dished about the season finale, which aired earlier this month. “But when I come home, something terrible happens to Tim, and he can’t get over it, and he suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder which is something a lot of our soldiers go through.”

He added, “[It] made you think about what these people actually go through and what they actually give.”